Little Lady London

In the spirit of Brecca’s love letters. I have my own letter to write. It’s not quite a love letter. I’m actually bidding farewell to a bitter-sweet internet obsession that I’ve recently developed.

Dear Mommy-Bloggers,

Though one of my closest friends is part of your posse and you are all wildly entertaining and your children are adorable and your love lives are…well…lovely. But I’m going to have to bid you farewell. (With the exception of Brecca, because how else will I watch London grow up?)

You see, you’re playing mind games with me. I’ve lost myself in your wedding pictures and pregnancy diaries. I’m starting to wonder if life is better as a mommy-blogger. But our lives cannot be compared! I am getting my aspirations in order and I am struggling to pursue my dreams. Torturing myself with your Cinderella-stories only serves to obstruct my focus. I’m working on a Master’s degree, not a nursery.

I never had plans for fairy tales weddings and baby-making. As I child, I never dreamed of prince charming and big white wedding dresses. I set out to pursue intellectualism, to travel the world and write books about it. I dreamed of chasing education! Being responsible for the life of a child is an inundating thought for me.  I mean no disrespect to you mommy-bloggers! I think your life is beautiful. I think your babies and your photography and your reading lists are charming. I’ve just known what I want for a long time now and sometimes you make me doubt myself.

Thanks for sharing your happiness, but I need to go find my own.

- L

I discussed the fairy-tale mommy bloggers with Eric recently. I was debating whether it was religion or drugs that made them so happy. Then he reminded me. A person makes a decision to be happy. Maybe their family or their beliefs influence that decision, but the decision belongs to them.

I’ve been struggling to find happiness. I work all night I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay…ain’t it sad? I can’t find a balance between business and pleasure. I want to read; I need to study. I want to write; I need to work.

Turns out all I need to do is turn on the happiness, by doing the things that make me happy.

1. Reading
I have a stack of books that I’ve been collecting all year. Classics like The Catcher in the Rye, The Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and more modern works like The Year of Living Bibically and Love Warps the Mind a Little. They keep piling and I’m dying to read them. I will give myself at least three nights a week of reading for at least a half hour.

2. Writing
I love to write. I write web content for work, but I want to write a novel for pleasure. Come on…you know you’d buy my novel. I vow to work on my novel every weekend. Sometimes I’ll work on it even before I do my homework.

3. Art
I have paintings sitting on my music stand that I started over two months ago and haven’t finished. I will finish them by the end of this year! I will also get back to scrapbooking…once I start remembering to carry my camera with me!

4. Listening to music
I stopped expanding my music library when I started my career. The two things are seemingly unrelated, but somehow as the amount of time I spent at work increased, the amount of new music I discovered decreased. That is going to change!

5. Playing music
My piano has been complete abandoned. Well…not completely abandoned. It serves as a stand for my unfinished paintings. This week I’ll dust off the piano. Next week I might actually try to play something. I’m not going to get too ahead of myself. The goal of becoming a real musician might be one I have to save for when I have more time.

6. Indulging my inner-child
I want to play in the park or build a secret fort in my apartment. I think it would be freeing. Different than the kind of freedom adults want (e.g. financial freedom, independence, etc…), but freeing nonetheless.

7. Riding my bike
I had high hopes when I first purchased my lovely green beach-cruiser-road-bike hybrid, but life got in the way! I suppose I will never get to ride it quite as much as I would like to, but twice a week is a reasonable goal.

8. Dating
Dating my one-and-only love― of course! I’m thinking I can combine some of the other things that make me happy (like indulging my inner child and listening to new music) with dating and it could make everything twice as much fun!

9. Cooking
Deb at Smitten Kitchen (she just had a baby; this does not make her a mom blogger. This blog stays!) makes me want to cook something different every night for a year. Unfortunately, I don’t have quite enough cash for all of those ingredients nor do I have enough time to cook every night. But once a week I vow to make something we’ve never had before. I started this week with Smitten Kitchen’s own 44-clove-garlic-soup.

10.  Keeping a cleaner home
This one is bittersweet. I don’t really want to spend every other night wiping counters and putting everything in its place, but I do feel at peace when my humble abode is clean. I will devise a method of keeping my apartment clean without having to spend hours cleaning. I will publish this method once it has been tested.